Historical novels are wonderful, first because they are a somewhat painless way to learn history. My history classroom in school was a text with lists of names and dates to memorize. A good, well researched historical novel can present the reader with well developed characters and then show how history effected them. Of course, a novel doesn't have to stick strictly to history, as this author showed us in The Underground Railroad. The Nickel School did not exist and this story is based on a reformatory located in Marianna, FL, a town which appears as you are driving through (which I have a number of times) to be a lovely quiet little rural town. Read for the history, read for the characters, read for the horror and the twist, but, mostly, read for Colson Whitehead's storytelling..
I will now return to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell for another 50 or so pages.
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